by Patricia Mellen, Downingtown, PA

Sometimes it’s not the big moments like a great concert that leave their mark on your soul so much as the little moments that music has the ability to somehow intensify.

My first taste of freedom came at Thanksgiving 1984, in the form of Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Clause is Coming to Town.” Since I have a huge family, the Thanksgiving meal was always segregated by age: the youngsters at card tables in the basement and the adults upstairs in the dining room, kitchen, and anywhere else they could squeeze. I was 16 that year and felt certain I would graduate away from the kid’s tables in the basement. No such luck. My nephew Andrew (then 15) and I were indignant that once again we were stuck eating our turkey with our diaper-clad relatives.

I had just gotten my driver’s license, so while everyone else was just digging into pumpkin pie, Andrew and I snuck out in my mother’s car. Still brooding over being slighted at dinner, we caught the tail end of “Alice’s Restaurant.” Then Bruce came on. We cranked up the volume. We rolled down the windows. We sang at the top of our lungs; our hair blowing and voices cracking as we flew down Middletown Road in Media. “Saaaaaaaanta Clause is coming to town!” “Saaaaaaaanta Clause is coming to town!” “San-ta-Clause is coming tooo-ooo town!”

We had discovered something better than sitting at the adult table: Freedom!